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What is natural horsemanship?
Well, I suppose you'd get as many different answers to this question as the number of people you asked. I believe, as in all horse training, there is no single right answer. only individual opinions. That said, I will now give you my own opinion and attempt to explain my rationale.
When we are riding or handling a horse, there are many things that wouldcause the horse to act in a way that is natural to the horse but very unpleasant or even dangerous to us. These types of incidents include bucking when they feel good, spooking at frightening or strange objects, bolting at perceived dangers, etc.
To me natural horsemanship means knowing and using some of the horse's natural characteristics to teach him, such as the pecking order, fear and laziness. We need to condition him to respond to our requests rather than having him do what comes naturally.
We can teach the horse in a round pen or on a longe line to move forward on command, turn right or left, stop, etc. This will establish us as being higher in the pecking order because the horse knows we are controlling his movements.When we teach the basics of "spook training" we teach the horse that when he becomes afraid he should stop his feet and look at what is scaring him. |
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